Chasing the Wind: A Story of British and German Pilots in the Battle of Britain

Robert “Robin” Priestman, RAF aerobatics pilot and “Debs’ Delight,” has a fatal personality flaw: when under sufficient stress, he loses all sense of his own limitations. He has incurred the displeasure of the Air Ministry by a dangerous breach of the King’s Regulations. Despite his credible service with a fighter squadron in France, the Battle of Britain finds him in Training Command—and falling in love with a girl from the Salvation Army.

No. 606 (Hurricane) Squadron has not recovered from the losses over Dunkirk when it is thrown into the Battle of Britain. As the losses mount, morale plunges. New pilots joining the squadron find a cold reception from the clique of Auxiliaries, who resent them taking the place of their dead friends.

Klaudia von Richthofen, a naïve recruit to the Luftwaffe Women’s Auxiliary, allows herself to be seduced by a dashing Stuka-Group commander—and then falls under the spell of the irreverent and carefree Baron von Feldburg. But it is his wingman, Leutnant Ernst Geuke, who has fallen desperately in love with her. Ernst, however, is short and plump and the son of a plumber from Cottbus, so how can he hope to win Klaudia’s affection?